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Are Trump’s Transgressions Always Worse?
I do not like the president. I have never liked the president. I will never like the president. Yet I am confused by statements about the president that seem to bolster his political opponents per a game of degrees that I honestly do not understand.
Today I heard two examples of this.
First, I was listening to an old episode of the Joe Rogan show. An attorney who works with the Innocence Project was discussing Kamala Harris’s criminal justice record per the possibility that she would be chosen as Biden’s VP candidate. Before saying anything else, Josh Dubin carefully held out the caveat that anyone running for office would be better than the current administration.
Then he described how Harris had fought to stop men he believed she knew to be innocent from exploring DNA evidence that might clear their names and get them out of prison. He detailed the cases of men on death row–death row–whom he believed were being denied justice by Kamala Harris. He talked about the disparate impact of Harris’s approach on minority communities. He discussed a case on which he had worked that had robbed a client of literally decades of his life per the type of zealousness that he saw in the now VP candidate when she was the lead prosecutor in California.
At some point in the conversation, Jason Flom, another advocate for the wrongfully convicted, added from another microphone that he would certainly vote for a Biden/Harris ticket despite misgivings about Harris’s record because he believes we are in an “existential crisis” with our current White House. And I smacked my head because I seriously don’t understand the logic.
Donald Trump is a blowhard. He is not a guy I want to have over for dinner. He rubs me the wrong way. I think there is plenty of evidence to show he is a narcissist and was a horrible business partner. He bilked people out of money at various times in his career. Some of these people were rather vulnerable such as the students who signed up for a Trump University degree. Per what I think I know about his history, I would not loan the president a dollar. But did he stop someone on death row from making a case for his innocence?
Actually, he signed the First Step Act to begin criminal justice reform. He signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which should have been a law all the way back when Theodore Roosevelt was president.
There seems to me to be some intellectual dissonance that I just can’t process.
Being a blowhard is as bad as keeping men behind bars to advance one’s own career?
How is saying dumb stuff worse than destroying real people via the criminal justice system?
How do these things balance on the “transgression scales?”
I add the caveat that I do not know the basis for these men’s hate of the president. Still, I do know they feel Kamala Harris worked in a material way against the missions to which they’ve dedicated their lives, and I can’t imagine why that isn’t worse than anything I can think of Donald Trump doing, and I have no problem saying he’s an idiot.
Then I turned on the Commentary podcast earlier today. This is one of my favorites! I often feel I am of like mind to these presenters, and I even wonder if any of them will reluctantly vote for Donald Trump in November. I’m not in the mind-reading business. Still, I can say this crew has no problems calling Donald Trump a clown when he acts like one, but they are never silent about the real successes of the administration either. In other words, unlike most of the media, they strike me as fair, which is why I keep listening to them.
Yet, yet, yet, I am baffled by one thing Monday morning.
John Podhoretz says that President Trump is in a poor position to attack influence peddling a la Hunter Biden per the positions of his children, and I have long accepted this per face value as true. I, too, have a cultural bias against nepotism, and it seems to me as if the whole Trump family is engaged in the White House. What does Jared Kushner really know about the Middle East? Why is Ivanka heading up a task force looking at cold case killings of indigenous children? Surely these people are only where they are because of who they know???? It’s so distasteful.
But, but, but… is that really the same thing as peddling influence to a government currently hosting concentration camps? Putting a drug-addled child on a board of a corrupt company in a foreign country?
Isn’t it more like grooming your own kid to be the editor of your own magazine, a position that many other people would want, because you trust he’ll do a good job?
(Oh, my God! Am I becoming a deplorable with blinders on per that comment?)
Let me tell you. I understand the deep skepticism of the Trump family, but in the end, Jared did a good job in the Middle East, didn’t he? Is Ivanka rolling in the dough because of her various tasks organizing people to look into the dead or whatever other committees she’s fronted?
Let me digress for just a moment while I make a weird admission.
Before Covid hit, I saw the cutest dress at, I think, Neiman Marcus. It was pricey, but it was on sale. I wanted to try it on until I saw the label: Ivanka Trump. I’m not proud to say it, but I put that little blue number with the pearl collar back on the rack like it was a hot potato because I just couldn’t face the cashier.
Is that an example of Ivanka Trump benefitting from being the president’s daughter?
Weren’t Jared and Ivanka already pretty rich before Trump gained his office?
What exactly did they gain?
Power as King and Queen of Pariahs?
Now, I have no idea if anything in the current Hunter Biden scandal is true or not true. I no longer know what is really happening in the world. There are too many conflicting stories, too many different narratives. I’m not even allowed to read the story per various forums, so who can say what is real? Still, Donald Trump didn’t destroy the media for me with his cries of “fake news.” My trust was blown up a long time ago by scandals in coverage over events like Benghazi. At this point, it’s mostly just noise for me, as I think about planting mums in an autumn garden…..
Yet, yet, yet, I can clearly see there are people working on the Innocence Project who will vote for someone they think knowingly prosecuted innocent people for the sake of ambition simply because she isn’t Donald Trump, and that frightens me. I can see myself accept a narrative that the president doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to appearances of impropriety and family in a knee jerk way until I wonder aloud is there a memo involving Tiffany or Barron or Don Jr. or whoever that says the “big guy gets 10” on the Trump side of the ledger? From China? I mean, I seem to recall something floating back somewhere about a golf course in Scotland, but I can’t remember the details anymore, and the loan sharks from Russia don’t seem to be real, so can anyone tell me the deal to which I’d apply equivalency?
By the way, I’ll be shocked if Donald Trump wins re-election with the media thumb so firmly on Biden’s scale, but I won’t be surprised, if that makes sense. Either way, I’ll vote for him in 2020 because the Bidens and Harris don’t seem to be an improvement in any department that I can measure. At least Donald Trump acts like a Catholic when it comes to saving the babies, and I really do care quite a bit about saving innocent lives.
Published in General
I agree to some extent, but I think they’ve up it a few hundred degrees….
I’m from the South. Maybe that’s why he rubs me wrong. :)
Btw, I love New York. I wouldn’t want to live there–no grits!!!–but I used to love to visit.
They are labelists. They apply a label that sounds vaguely nefarious then act as though it’s definitive. So I apply the label of labelist on them as a fitting tribute to their shallow tactics.
These are people who get traction by fooling stupid people. They have contempt for the people they fool, but become outraged at the people they can’t fool.
It’s really easy to put these people in their place. Ask “ if someone is not a nationalist, what are they, a globalist, an ‘internationalist’? “
Same with populist. So if you aren’t a populist, what are you then, an elitist? That is the opposite of populism is it not?
Our country was founded on principles that are quite populist, giving voting power to people.
Paraphrasing William F Buckley I’d rather be ruled by first 200 names in the Cambridge telephone book than the faculty of Harvard. That’s populism concisely if I’ve ever heard it, coming from someone who could easily qualify as ‘elite’ himself and generally acknowledged as a strong conservative with a good amount of libertarianism and common sense.
Podhoretz is clearly an elitist in his approach. Notice the elitist tendency in every Never Trumpers and to a lesser extent generally in the balls and strikes umpires.
Tho elite political class would sorely enjoy not having to compete with people who have cut their teeth in the private sector and who haven’t been indoctrinated in Georgetown University or Kennedy School of Government dogma. That’s because being a politician is being part of the groupthink club whereby you don’t have to produce results or even be very competent.
Trump and his family are showing them up.
Lastly someone who thinks he’s as smart as JPod should know the difference between making money and being successful BEFORE entering politics and those who enrich themselves and their family members WHILE holding office. So it’s either stupidity or disingenuousness.
Yes, I could see how he doesn’t appeal to you. What part of the south are you from? Louisiana?
This is definitely one of the factors in the elitists’ reaction to the President. Status anxiety. A complete Washington outsider won the election without the assist of the usual set of “Republican” elitists, experts, or consultants. They came to him begging for jobs and he wouldn’t hire them. (Steve Schmidt took this quite personally. Mitt Romney also begged and groveled. Both are fierce opponents of the President. So much for conservative values. I think the only thing the elitists value is power and graft.)
The elitists fear that the longer Trump is president, the less influence (and therefore graft) will they have. No wonder they’re increasingly shrill in their attacks.
I haven’t read the comments so far and probably won’t.
I appreciate this post as an attempt to engage with Trump’s critics fairly which I see less and less often from his supporters.
I can think Hunter is worse than Ivanka et al while still thinking more highly of Biden than Trump.
Biden may have humored his recovering son by handing out some photo-ops, but Hunter’s not going to be in the oval office.
I don’t know for sure. Having fully bought into “politics as pro wrestling” I’ll say I’m mostly enjoying his character, but I don’t know how closely that equates to the real person.
Second.
Maybe. I grew up in southern Florida (as opposed to South Florida), but my dad is a new Yorker and while my dad has better character, their personalities are similar. There are facial expressions that Trump gets that remind me so much of my dad, it cracks me up.
What’s funny about this comment (that he probably won’t read) is that this post was written by someone who doesn’t like Trump trying to engage with Trump supporters in a understanding sort of way.
And that Trump supporters at Ricochet are generally demanding the anti Trump crowd come up with better criticism.
In what respect? I mean I truthfully can’t see the appeal of Biden. I guess he is a more conventional politician than Trump; however, he isn’t an impressive one. Is there something you find admirable about Biden or are you just particularly sour on Trump?
And respect is impressive enough. After all, children, rich children more so, often grow up either aimless and confused or rebellious against their parents.
Shameless Plug.
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Georgia.
I am definitely interested in fairness. I am interpreting this as your saying that you think that Trump’s children have gained more from their father because they have gotten real power, whereas Biden’s son only got money for offering something superficial?
JPod has made a similar argument about how people in other countries have a different culture so trade on that photo op in a way that you could not in the United States. Hunter is simply taking advantage of their cultural misunderstandings. (He is conning them.)
I’m not sure I buy that theory. (See? See? Buy??? Sometimes I crack myself up.) :)
I mean, I have to assume that all these foreigners who pass out money like it’s from Monopoly are very unsophisticated actors.
But I appreciate the take. It is at least a coherent interpretation that can be discussed reasonably.
Thanks for engaging.
Yes!!!! You’ll see I’m gorgeous, too!!!!!! :)
I’ve often thought about how kind and agreeable you guys were even though we didn’t agree on all the finer points.
In fact, I think you would be great moderators for a presidential debate…. leaders of a nice conversation.
Biden’s running to be President of the whole country. I found “unifying” rhetoric to be cloying when it was common but miss it now it’s gone. Partisan hatred has to stop.
I think more highly of a widower than a serial divorcee and adulterer.
A Democrat who can brag about beating Bernie Sanders is one I like. Trump allows no enemies to his right.
And yeah, the conventionality counts for a lot. Some of those conventions turned out to be important.
A conversation about Joe Biden is fine but it is my opinion that this is most definitely not an election about Biden.
No, you’re not. I think Trump — and this is from a consideration of how he has presented himself, the nature and quality of the criticisms made against him, and several anecdotal accounts of his private behavior — I think Trump is a good, as possibly great, guy personally. He may be the kind of guy who, if you cross him badly once, will treat you with disdain, but I’ve known a lot of people who will hold you in disdain for a lot less. And he is a funny (ha-ha) guy. And he gives credit where it’s due, which is certainly rare among politicians. And he isn’t afraid to buck social convention, as when he hired Grenell in contrast to Romney who fired him as soon as he heard he was gay. And look what Grenell has done. Can he be rough? Yes, and if he hadn’t been rough he would never have gotten the Republican nomination, let alone won the presidency.
I don’t see anything warranting the bad reputation that he has had.
I would, too. But I wouldn’t have anything to say. Maybe dinner with him and Mark Steyn, and Walter Williams.
You know I once had an argument/discussion with a guy who had this question: Would you rather deal with a surly unpleasant guy who was highly competent, or a nice and gentle person who was incompetent?
He gave this example. He went to a camera shop in a southern state to get a replacement screw that had come loose from his camera, and the clerk was so very polite and courteous, but didn’t have the replacement screw, and was very contrite about it. He then later happened to go to a shop in New York City, cramped and cluttered to the ceiling with odds and ends, and was serviced by an insulting and demanding guy with a bad temper, and the guy angrily demanded that he Wait! The clerk left and came back ten minutes later with the exact screw. He argued that competence beat out courtesy. And I said I think courtesy was more important.
I’ve changed my view (somewhat).
I am afraid that I do not see Biden as a person who wants to unify. I don’t even hear that much unifying rhetoric. At the very least, I do not see Biden as a person capable of pulling together all the different factions in his own party, much less that of the whole country, even if that’s his aspiration.
That said, I completely understand your feeling… the desire for that to be true.
I guess it took me a long time to get there, but I think something that one of these podcast guys said once on Ricochet–maybe it was JPod, though I don’t remember for certain–is exactly true: Trump didn’t kill the American body politic. He was just the coroner who showed up to collect the body.
The partisanship was pretty intense pre-Trump.
I am not sure how to fix any of it, but I think the behavior on the Left had been… not conventional.
I agree with that sentiment. This is definitely not an election about Joe Biden. Even these reasons are really about Donald Trump. When I have asked in good faith for a positive case for Biden from any of my progressive friends, the conversation drifts back to Trump. No one seems to be able to articulate why Joe Biden per Joe Biden would be a good president.
I’m greedy. I want both. ;)
Nobody’s voting for Biden. Those who check the box marked “Biden” are actually voting against President Trump. (And realistically, voting in Kamala Harris.)
Let that strike fear in the hearts of the Trump-haters.
Yes, and I suspect that if the decrepit figurehead Biden is elected and does not move as quickly to the left as Progressives want we will see a campaign started to remove him and install Harris using either his mental state or via the media finally allowing the Hunter Biden and Biden family scandal to surface. I may not have liked Joe Biden twenty years ago but he was someone definitely in control of his own agenda. This shell of a man is not.
I think that Biden and Trump’s complicity may not be proportional to their children’s sins. For all I know Jared and Ivanka take their jobs seriously. If so good for them. But Trump chose to have his family paid out of the public coffers for work for which they were not qualified. That’s on him and is a violation of public trust. Hunter Biden’s graft, taking advantage of the proximity to power, is more on Hunter Biden. Joe’s actions might be scummy but aren’t per se even official acts, much less corrupt.
Lol. When I was a kid, there were these two women who I thought were so mean. Angry school teacher mean (they WERE teachers, wouldn’t you know). I didn’t like them much.
But when I became a teenager a found I liked them and respected them more than the people I thought were “nice” as a kid. One of them is my aunt. Her twin is the “nice” one, but I find the “mean” one to have more sense and genuine kindness and her “meanness” came from knowing what is right and wrong and brooking no nonsense. Her twin is more bohemian :p
There’s a character in Anne of the Island that shifted my perspective on cranky and crotchety people, but I don’t think Trump is cranky or crotchety.
Yes, I wish we could have a President who’d say things like this:
Oh wait, that was President Trump in his Mt Rushmore speech – the one I was assured was dark and divisive.
Biden and the Democrats are not unity candidates. Biden has publicly stated his belief in systemic racism as have leading Democrats and the party platform. That term has a specific meaning in Critical Race theory under which race is the only determinate for explaining power and behavior and denies the ability of individuals to act otherwise. It specifically rejects the idea of neutral processes that the American constitutional system was built upon and instead substitutes a raw lust for power based on dividing Americans along racial and ethnic lines. My guess is Biden is so far gone he does not understand this (though he is the guy who told African Americans in 2012 that Mitt Romney would “put you all back in chains”) but the people around him certainly do.
I’m not sure I’d call $3.5 million “only money.”
Obama killed it. He was the most divisive president of our time. Between his incendiary rhetoric against red America and his race baiting that launched BLM, he is the one who sold death and despair under the banner “hope and change”.